Hopes Of Consecutive Wins Go Up In Smoke

After earning their second away win of the season against Newcastle United on Monday night, West Ham United’s second game this week didn’t quite go to plan, as they failed to follow up the 2-0 success at St James’ Park by falling to a 5-2 home defeat to Arsenal in Saturday’s late kick-off.

Julen Lopetegui named an unchanged starting line-up from that victory, while youngsters Luis Guilherme, Oliver Scarles and Ezra Mayers were all included amongst the substitutes.

Despite suggestions that Declan Rice wouldn’t be available to feature against his former club, he was named by Mikel Arteta from the start of the match.

After a dominant performance against Eddie Howe’s Magpies just five days earlier, the hosts were obviously looking to push on and looked in the opening exchanges as if they might make an early breakthrough.

However, as we all know that it doesn’t usually take Arsenal long to click into gear and they went ahead after just ten minutes through one of Gabriel’s now trademark headers.

West Ham had a VAR decision go in their favour on Tyneside and when Captain Jarrod Bowen played the ball into Crysencio Summerville and the former Leeds United man put it past visiting goalkeeper David Raya, there were loud cheers from the majority inside the stadium but almost immediately, his effort was ruled out for offside.

Having suffered the setback of the equaliser being disallowed, it didn’t deter the home side from seeing if they could get back on level terms. Having said that, it then all fell apart after twenty seven minutes when Arteta’s side scored three goals, including two penalties which seemingly put the game beyond the Irons. However, Lopetegui’s men showed incredible resolve and came up with two goals to make the score 4-2, which gave the home fans hope going into the second-half.

There was another twist though, five minutes of stoppage time had been signalled and referee Anthony Taylor awarded the visitors another penalty for a foul by goalkeeper Łukasz Fabiański on Bukayo Saka. The midfielder took the spot-kick himself to extinguish that hope.

Both managers made a change at half-time. West Ham replaced Summerville with  Edson Álvarez, whilst Arteta swapped Gabriel for Jakub Kiwior.

The second-half was a much calmer affair. Arsenal were still applying pressure but the hosts were far more resilient and determined not to make it a repeat of last season’s result in this top-flight fixture.

Both Michail Antonio and Bowen had chances to reduce the arrears once again but neither attempt troubled Raya.

A number of changes were made by the hosts clearly with the trip to newly-promoted Leicester City on the mind of the Head-Coach. Vladimír Coufal, Guido Rodríguez, Andy Irving and Danny Ings all came on for Emerson Palmieri, Carlos Soler Lucas Paquetá and Antonio.

Despite the changes in personnel, West Ham just weren’t able to find a way through. That was until one final chance was fashioned in the dying moments. Ings had Raya beaten and the goal at his mercy but he somehow missed the target.

A pulsating game ended with the home support leaving Stratford feeling disappointed once again. Here’s hoping that their fortunes improve against the Foxes on Tuesday night.